1. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to methods and apparatus for session handoff procedures in heterogeneous networks.
2. Background
Wireless networking systems have become a prevalent means to communicate with others worldwide. Wireless communication devices, such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants, and the like have become smaller and more powerful in order to meet consumer needs and to improve portability and convenience. Consumers have become dependent upon these devices, demanding reliable service, expanded areas of coverage, additional services (e.g., web browsing capabilities), and continued reduction in size and cost of such devices.
In particular, as the evolution of wireless technologies continues to advance, the progression of mobile services will continue to evolve into ever-richer, more compelling mobile and converged services. With end users demanding more and higher-quality multimedia content in all environments, the evolution of device technologies will continue to enhance the increasing consumption of data usage. For example, over the last several years, wireless communications technologies have evolved from analog-driven systems to digital systems. Typically in conventional analog systems, the analog signals are relayed on a forward link and a reverse link and require a significant amount of bandwidth to enable signals to be transmitted and received while being associated with suitable quality. As the analog signals are continuous in time and space, no status messages (e.g., messages indicating receipt or non-receipt of data) are generated. In contrast, packet-switched systems allow analog signals to be converted to data packets and transmitted by way of a physical channel between an access terminal and a base station, router, and the like. In addition, digital data can be relayed in its natural form (e.g., text, Internet data, and the like) via employing a packet switched network.
As such, digital wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and the like. Such systems commonly employ an access network that connects multiple access terminals to a wide area network (WAN) by sharing the available network resources. The access network is typically implemented with multiple access points dispersed throughout a geographic coverage region. Moreover, the geographic coverage region can be divided into cells with an access point in each cell. Likewise, the cell can be further divided into sectors. However, in such system architecture, supplying an efficient handoff between access systems that do not share the same communication procedures and policies becomes a challenging task.